Brussels, 4-5 February 2026 – The periASTY project, a new Horizon Europe project coordinated by ERTICO – ITS Europe, officially launched its activities during a two-day kick-off meeting on 4–5 February in Brussels, bringing together over 60 representatives from 36 partner organisations across Europe.
periASTY aims to integrate peri-urban areas into the transition towards climate neutrality by developing and demonstrating innovative solutions in mobility, energy, industry, and governance. The project directly contributes to the EU Mission: Climate-Neutral and Smart Cities and the climate neutrality targets for 2030 set in the European Green Deal.
Achieving these targets requires that peri-urban areas – the transition zones connecting cities with their wider regions – are fully integrated into ongoing decarbonisation efforts. These areas face distinct challenges that the project will address, such as high car dependency due to more dispersed populations, inefficient energy consumption with limited renewable integration, less effective waste collection strategies, underutilised circular economy practices, and governance tools that focus on city centres, rarely involving whole functional urban areas (FUAs). periASTY addresses these specific barriers through tailored solutions to enable peri-urban areas to contribute meaningfully to Europe’s 2030 climate goals.
The periASTY innovations to decarbonise peri-urban areas
periASTY will develop “periInnovations“, flexible and adjustable solutions specifically designed for peri-urban areas and FUAs. These innovations encompass four key areas:
Mobility solutions will increase accessibility, safety, interconnectivity, efficiency, and inclusivity while reducing emissions, congestion, and the use of private vehicles. These include algorithms for safe, low-emission shared micromobility services (car, bike, and scooter sharing) and demand-responsive transport, tools for optimisation and synchronisation of services to enable seamless multimodality, and new business models and pricing schemes tailored to peri-urban contexts.
Energy solutions will accelerate clean energy production and grid decarbonisation through renewable energy charging hubs and grid optimisation, district-scale optimal energy system design and planning platforms, sufficiency measures assessment tools for reducing local energy community demand and emissions, and business models tailored for renewable local energy communities.
Industry solutions will enhance circular economy practices through an urban mining marketplace for construction materials, a circular economy marketplace for businesses to exchange, sell, buy, or donate items, a smart waste management and recycling platform with incentives, dynamic routing algorithms for waste collection and disposal in low-density areas, and Local Green Deal frameworks to engage industry in the climate neutrality commitment.
Governance solutions will enable integrated decision-making through a federated data governance framework for FUA digital twins and integrated data-driven decision-making and monitoring tools for cities and their peri-urban areas.
Lidia Buenavida Peña, periASTY Project Coordinator and Manager at ERTICO – ITS Europe, says:
“Achieving climate neutrality in Europe cannot stop at city boundaries. Peri-urban areas are structurally complex environments: they combine dispersed populations, high car dependency, fragmented governance structures, and infrastructure systems that were not designed for rapid decarbonisation. Integrating these areas into the climate transition is both a major challenge and a necessity if Europe is to meet its 2030 targets.
periASTY addresses this complexity head-on by bringing together mobility, energy, industry, and governance solutions into a coherent framework tailored specifically to functional urban areas. The scale of the challenge is significant, but so is the opportunity. With the expertise, diversity, and commitment of our 36 partners, and through close collaboration with the Living Labs, we are confident that periASTY will deliver practical, scalable solutions that enable peri-urban areas to become active contributors to Europe’s climate-neutral future.”
Co-design and real-world demonstrations in nine Living Labs
The periInnovations will be co-designed with citizens, local authorities, and stakeholders from various sectors. They will be demonstrated in real-world environments across nine Living Labs in peri-urban areas of Dublin (Ireland), Limassol-Kourion (Cyprus), Ljubljana (Slovenia), Marseille (France), Guimarães (Portugal), Helmond (Netherlands), Kalamata (Greece), Sofia (Bulgaria), and Sisslerfeld (Switzerland).
The knowledge generated from these demonstrations will be used to create sustainable implementation roadmaps for FUA development and to generate recommendations for integrated planning and adaptive collaborative governance models. Capacity-building activities will also be organised through the periSKILLS Academy to accelerate the transition towards climate-neutral, safe, and smart European urban areas.
